The Gallifreyan Gazette Pages

Thursday, October 3, 2013

Doctor Who 50th Anniversary: The Girl In The Fireplace

Doctor Who:

The Girl In
The Fireplace

By Steven
Moffat

“I’m The Doctor
and I just snogged Madame de Pompadour!”

The Doctor,
Rose and Mickey have landed on a ship in the 51st Century that seems
to be deserted.But what is strange is
that somehow the ship has enough power to punch holes in time and they act like
windows to the past.What The Doctor discovers
is that the Clockwork Robots seem to be interested in a girl called
Reinette.The Doctor first meets her
from inside a fireplacethat is a door
from the spaceship to 17th Century France and on the second time through
he meets Reinette as a young woman and discovers that she is in factMadame de Pompadour the Kings mistress and a integral
part of history.

The Robots
have used the crew of the ship to repair the ship by using the body parts like
an eye for a camera and a heart for a pump.The Doctor discovers that they want Reinette’s brain for some reason and
keep appearing along her timeline to see if the brain is ready.The Doctor must come up with a way to stop
the robots and save timelines from being altered and this time he might be
trapped in 17th Century France as a result.

“The Girl In
The Fireplace was a story that did not disappoint when it was first aired back
in 2006. From the very beginning when The Doctor discovers the fireplace in the
51st century spaceship to the very end when The Doctor is
heartbroken over the passing of Madame de Pompadour you are hooked on the
anticipation of what is going to happen next. This story is a bit different as it takes
place during the timeline of Madame de Pompadour.What made it interesting was everytime The
Doctor would go back to her she would be a little bit older with the threat of
the Clockwork Men looming. What was
freaky was that the Clockwork Men wanted her brain and the freaky part is that
they wanted it to be the main computer to operate the ship.The only reason is that the ship has her name
attached to it and that is why they want it and that is what makes it so
freaky.

“The Girl In
The Fireplace” is a different type of story as it is quite plainly a love story
and if you didn’t figure that one out well then I have nothing to say about
that naivety. The Chemistry between The
Doctor and Reinette is quite obvious and quite sad since this story doesn’t end
with a happy ending as Reinette dies before The Doctor comes back to take her
on that trip.The death of Reinette
truly hurts The Doctor and we haven’t really seen him affect like this
before.True we have seen The Doctor sad
when a companion leaves or dies but this time it seems different as his hearts
were truly broken.

It was funny
to see Mickey on his first trip in the TARDIS.The joy and excitement of landing on an alien ship was fun to
watch.Almost like when Rose first
started and she was amazed at what she was seeing.I really liked the style of the Clockwork Men
with all those cogs and gears it was really clever to see a robot look like
that.To see the gears and cogs working
was really neat to see and it’s a shame they haven’t done anything that clever
or creative since.Plus their disguises
look really amazing and added to the freakiness of them.

“The Girl In
The Fireplace” is one of my favorite stories ever.I really like this one and liked the love
story aspect to it.We get to see a side
of The Doctor we don’t see hardly ever and we see how truly vulnerable he is
when he gets the news of Reinette’s passing.It is a really emotionally charged story and just a great story all
around.The fact that it does not have a
happy ending and you knew that from the start gives it a realism because
sometimes life doesn’t always have a happy ending and those who have had their
hearts broken can really relate to what The Doctor is going through. It is truly one of the gems of the new series
and the history of Doctor Who.

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